A light overview of some Chinese-media fandoms

I'm sick to the point where I get light-headed folding laundry, so I said on twitter I would do a post explaining all those Chinese fandoms. Obviously, I cannot explain "all" those Chinese fandoms, this is an overview of Chinese fandoms that have an English-language presence that I am aware of.

Chinese Fandoms

So maybe you’re like, what are all these Chinese language canon fandoms that are popping up? Maybe you’ve heard of Guardian or Nirvana in Fire or The Untamed. These are three different Chinese language media offerings that have really only one thing in common: they are all adapted from self-published web-novels that were originally posted on BL (boy-love, analogous to slash) forums.

In order of objectively (I don’t think fans will disagree?) highest to lowest quality, it’s definitely Nirvana in Fire on top, and Guardian on bottom, and not coincidentally, that is probably the way their respective budgets were disbursed too. The other non-coincidence is that NIF, despite being posted on a BL forum, has very little (none? I don’t read Chinese so keep in mind this is all me reporting what I ~heard~) actual m/m content so it suffered least under censorship.

In order of beautiful men gazing meaningfully at each other, I’m going to say its a tie.

(aside: The Untamed is sometimes referred to as CQL, a reference to the chinese title, “Chén qíng lìng”, and the novel is sometimes referred to as MDZS (Mó Dào Zǔ Shī), partly because early translators couldn’t agree on a title translation. You will sometimes see the novel referred to as either Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation or Founder of Diabolism. The other properties are slightly less confusing, although Nirvana in Fire is a apparently a title made up for English release and completely unrelated to the Chinese title, Lángyá Bǎng.)

All of these writers released and revised their novels online as they wrote them, such that there is often no one “canonical” version, even before you get to translation. In addition, some of them were censored post-facto when they gained popularity, as they came to attention for ‘obscenity.’ Some of them have multiple competing translations (sometimes for only a couple of chapters!)

When you talk about “adaption” of any of these, you’re also talking about censorship, which is its own topic. Chinese censorship is a bit baffling, and seemingly unevenly enforced (which may the point: hard to go right up to the line if the line keeps moving) so that any amount of subtext seems to be fine, but seemingly innocuous subjects are verboten. Most censorship is more properly ‘self-censorship.’ The producers have some idea what will and won’t fly, so the story is adapted to meet the known objections of the state. Web-novels are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as dramas.

But what about the gay, you may want to know? This is honestly the least censored, in some respect. Since you cannot show sex or sweaty makeouts onscreen anyway, those scenes disappear, you get rid of the overt flirting, and you’re left with subtext which the filmmakers are definitely not doing by accident. Heavy, heavy, subtext. The actors gaze into each others’ eyes, quite a bit, but honestly the narrative structure does a lot of heavy lifting. Each of the mentioned stories has a plot which could be, on some ludicrously simple level described as “local man decides to dedicate his life working for other guy’s welfare.”

Okay, but is it in English?

All of these are to some degree available in English, primarily because of tireless fan-translators. The easiest to find is The Untamed, because it is on Netflix, although the translation there is a little unambitious.

If you’re interested in translations of the underlying novels, Novel Updates.com is a good place to start. Since the novels are huge endeavours, novel translations are often done piecemeal, a chapter at a time by different members of a team. As a result, they can be a little challenging to read when translation choices or even names shift and change as you read.

Nirvana in Fire

There's no full translation of the novel, but sartorias points to Langya Scribe which has translated some of it.

The only one I can say is objectively “good”, NiF is the story of this Chinese Count of Monte Cristo who returns to the Emperor’s court unrecognized, and with the help of friends and allies, sets in motion a chain of events to destroy those who orchestrated the downfall of his family, and bring his once BFF to power as the next Emperor. It's got a large cast, nearly all the actors are great, it has great roles for women.

NIF also has the best plotting; when you get to the bottom of a triple-fake-out, you’re not like, “wait a second, but that doesn’t make sense…” like some of J.J. Abrams spy game. Instead, now everything makes sense. (Except some of the laws of physics and medicine. See “wuxia” below.)

Shippiness

I might be the wrong one to ask. I watched the whole thing and came away shipping the het rarepair, but most people ship Master Manipulator/BFF who doesn’t recognize him.

Production Values

The costumes and sets and stuff are beautiful. Could watch it just for the hats and hairpieces, on some level. My only nitpick would be that until I watched this I never noticed that everyone’s hairline is different and helps define their face, and apparently NiF bought their wigs in bulk so everyone has the exact same hairline and it’s weird.

Watching

This show throws a lot of characters at you fast, and although you will pick it up as you go, you may be tempted to look for character guides. If you do, be very careful, as spoilers abound, and a character guide can spoil you for a major twist just by labelling someone “so-and-so’s mother” or “this person’s son [deceased].”

If you're looking for dubs, they're on Viki.com, but the subs have disappeared. You can find some subs on Dailymotion, although these are not the ones I watched, I don't think so I can't speak for the team.

Guardian

The original text is not fully translated, but you will find partial translations and summaries up on the web. (partial translation of Guardian and information about it here.) Guardian also has the wackiest adaption. Because depicting supernatural elements in the modern era is not okay, Guardian, a novel about the spook-enforcement agency in a modern (but made up) city, has had to do some wild contortions where all the spooks are actually aliens who just happen to resemble spooks of legend, and all the magic is psychic powers. Because you can’t have supernatural beings, the fact that these characters knew each other long ago in the past is now explained with time-travel rather than supernatural longevity. The the bureau chief of the (not) supernatural enforcement bureau, meant to keep the underworld shenanigans on the down low, is smitten with local university prof who hides a secret. (The secret is that he’s the powerful Envoy from Underground. This is not particularly a spoiler.)

Disclaimer: I have not watched much Guardian, because the CGI is so bad, you guys. So bad. Apparently it gets worse as it goes on, too, but I didn’t make it.

Shippiness

The gay is very nearly textual, within the limits of censorship. I think it has a sad ending that everyone pretends didn’t happen?

Production Values

Not… great.

Watching

God bless and good luck. ETA: bokglobulia provides a link to Guardian on Youtube.

Commenters link to some edited subs in the comments.

The Untamed

The underlying text is MDZS, which is the story of this one talented cultivator who learns how to harness ‘demonic energy’, which allows him to control spirits including the unquiet dead, and the nerd cultivator who loves him. In the background are two political upheavals, a serial killer, some very cute kids, and one Very Bad Dad.

CQL is the same, except for “love” replace “admire” and for “undead” replace… it’s not very clear? But the show does want you to know that he’s definitely not corpse-wrangling. He’s… doing some other thing. Not corpse-puppetry.

Shippiness

Very. All the explicit declarations of love are just replaced with music-videos where the main pairing play a duet.

Production Values

Okay. The CGI is not great, but there are entire episodes with no CGI. The keep everyone’s hair up in the same hairstyle so they don’t have to redo their wigs, with the result that we’re meant to believe that everyone sleeps with a pound of jewellery in their updo. Occasionally you’ll see a zipper on someone’s hanfu.

Watching

The story starts, and then a 34 episode long flashback begins. Some people recommend starting, skipping the flashback episodes, and then coming back to them at the end for context. IDK, I read the novel first which interleaves past and present so skipping is harder.

MXTX

MXTX (Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù) has written only one of the sources discussed above, but her web-novels are the most completely translated. She has also written some un-adapted novels, “The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System” (SVSS) and “Heaven Official’s Blessing” (TGCF) (why are some abbreviated in English and others in Pinyin? IDK) as well as the one adapted into The Untamed, “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” (MDZS). What you need to know about MXTX is that she writes from the id.

She’s really outstanding at writing a looong novel that hangs together, balancing a huge cast of characters and keeping them all memorable, and the slow burn.

She’s not great at writing women, especially who survive to the end of the novel, although in her novels to date there’s an upward trend?

If I were making an MXTX bingo card, it would probably include:

background gore
foreground gore
one or more of OTP dead for all or part of the novel/their relationship
coffin-groping
- that is, groping, in a coffin.
someone is like, “Whew, thank goodness this innocent child is Too Young to understand what is happening.”
- Meanwhile, innocent child is like “I just got hit by puberty like a sledgehammer, and I am going to have some Weird Kinks.”
big casts
badass woman, but she dead
one of them is holding a torch that can be seen from space, the other is like, “Why is he looking at me? What’s he up to?”
sex described sounds objectively unpleasant?
you can tell they’re OTP because one of them eats the other’s cooking
Someone’s reputation is blackened unjustly

All of MXTX’s stories are within the xianxia genre, which is a well established fantasy trope that she assumes her readers are familiar with and doesn’t explain too much. (Like many well established tropes, the details are not wholly consistent from one example to the next, so it may work slightly differently in different examples.). One of the things translators struggle with is coming up with ways of translating supernatural beings that don’t have English readers’ pre-conceptions laid over them. I struggle most with the term “faeries” because it makes me think of Cottingly-type faeries.

I don’t know if xianxia is responsible for the gore that I find very common in MXTX (someone’s going to get dismembered, maybe just in passing) or if that’s MXTX’s thing.

Scum Villain’s Self-saving System is both the funniest MXTX and the most eye-brow raising. The conceit is that the reader of a Chinese Xianxia harem-type web-novel finds himself sucked into the world of the novel– in the place of the villain. Since he knows that the villain comes to a terrible end, he works to avoid it. The catch is, it’s a very shitty webnovel, full of tropes, terrible plot contrivances, and a hilariously over-powered hero, and the transmigrated reader keeps getting shoved into all kinds of contrived situations, while swearing at them profusely. And why is the hero looking at him like that, does he suspect something?

SVSS is less of “I can see the author’s kinks” and more “An alphabetized compendium of author’s kinks, with footnotes.” It starts at student/teacher and goes all the way to… corpse-cuddling? There’s some fuck or die? I don’t know how to warn for everything, but like, the characters are satisfied with the situation re: consent, but the author is very interested in the tropes of non-consent.

Although The Untamed (CQL) has some hilarious attempts to explain the tv adaptation in a way that isn’t “this one gay nerd has a real bad crush, and his crush gets caught up in politics and dies. But then he comes back,” that’s the core. Unlike the tv show, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is willing to allow for straight up Necromancy. (I mean, what would be necromancy in an English cultural context. But it’s definitely willing to raise the dead). The gay is quite explicit too, although sometimes in ways that seem… like the ‘you tried… but did you?’ representation of mainstream English media in the mid nineties.

MDZS is slightly more “gotta keep the kinks under the table” although both the author and the characters are interested in non-con fantasies. skygiants write up of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation goes more in depth on the novel’s charms and some caveats.

Heaven Official’s Blessing, an apostrophe that just will not stay where its put, is about a character who builds his spiritual power until he ascends to godhood– and then immediately fails out because he can’t obey the rules. Then he ascends again… and crashes again. This is the story of his third time. (Although by the time you go through all the flashbacks, you’ll have covered the whole territory.) Heaven Official’s Blessing is the fluffiest, although you cannot say it is warning free, the two main characters are really secure in each others’ affections and just really supportive of each other. But also there’s a background level of horror and gore. alias_sqbr has a much more complete guide to Heaven Official’s Blessing, including warnings and links

Wuxia vs. Xianxia

Wuxia: Think “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” if you’ve never encountered it before. A well established genre with its own tropes which may vary slightly in different implementations. The main genre convention is that martial artists are exaggeratedly powerful.
Xianxia: Wuxia + fantastical aspects. Ghosts, demons, and gods. Martial artists’ power levels can go completely off the chain, cultivating spiritual disciplines until they can fly, or even achieve immortality.

This post has been edited several times to add links to material brought to my attention in the comments.

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From:

everbright

THANK YOU. God I've had such a hard time figuring put ppl are talking about re:these chinese webnovels.

From:

brownbetty

I hope I haven't confused the situation further! But yes, some of the web novels have multiple names, which sure doesn't help!

From:

libitina

Nice! This looks like a very solid primer. I'm not yet at the point of branching out beyond MDZS/CQL, but I've been trying to track what to watch next. You know, once I finish the animated version, and the audio version, and researched them all again for good measure.

From:

brownbetty

hah, enjoy! This isn't like, an in-depth primer to any of them, more just a broad overview of "what is even going on over there?" I would offer recs, but honestly I think my biases come through pretty strongly already. BUT LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT MORE OPINIONS BECAUSE I HAVE THEM.

Allegro, Con Brie: Joyfully, with cheese.